


Please

by thisprettywren



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mental Breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-20
Updated: 2011-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-15 20:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisprettywren/pseuds/thisprettywren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>White, padded walls. Straightjacket. “<i>Please</i>, John.” - <a href="http://blackalchemist.livejournal.com/"><b>blackalchemist</b></a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Please

 

John came to visit him every week.

The first time, Sherlock had been stoic and sullen. Had refused to speak to him, despite the fact that it was the only real stimulation he was likely to get for days, in the same way he refused to ask the attendants to massage his cramped muscles (though he needed it, the cramps clawing up his neck like hot pincers, jolting him awake with bolts of fire through his bones).

Sherlock was determined not to let John find him a broken man, even though— well.

Even though he _was._

 _  
_

* * *

 

The second, third, fourth, eighth time, John’s face had worn the same weary expression, pinched and _wrong_ , and Sherlock didn’t know how he felt about that.

John was his friend.

John had signed the papers that put him here.

The ninth time John came to visit, he was turned away. “We had to put him in the isolation tank,” the nurse explained, her voice clinically sorrowful, that practiced sympathetic grief that belied underlying apathy.

Sherlock didn’t know any of this, of course, not until afterward. They tormented him with this sort of news, spoken in cheerful tones (underlying apathy: again, always), that he’d just missed his chance. Relayed to him while he lay in the dark and, once again, ran his fingers along the inside of the muffling canvas, rubbed his head (didn’t hit it, did no good, never enough) against the wall behind him.

The room had been dark for hours ( _days, if John had come and gone_ , relief and terror that he was losing track).

His bladder was full. He wondered how long he’d be able to hold out, if he’d be able to make himself ask this time. If he’d piss himself again, if it would be seen as recalcitrance or illness, earn him more time here in the dark.

Waited and clawed at the canvas and—  _nothing_.

 

* * *

 

The tenth time John came, Sherlock spoke to him.

Couldn’t stop speaking, in fact. Begged him, with his eyes and his tongue, to look at the papers again, the evidence, surely he knew, _John, you know me, you know I didn’t—_

But John didn’t know, didn’t trust. There’d been evidence. Lestrade, Mycroft (even Mycroft, _especially_ Mycroft), that sorrowful parade of fact after false fact.

False facts?

Perhaps he belonged here.

John shifted, looked uncomfortable. Apologised, and it stung. He _was_ sorry, even Sherlock could see that it was tearing him up to know he was the cause of this (not the cause, but the officiant; not the jury but the executioner).

And he had trusted, hadn’t run when he had the chance, even though he felt the trap closing around him. Had trusted— what, facts? False, apparently. John. _John_. Yes. And John—

John didn’t know. Couldn’t trust. The false facts too frequent (fulsome— _abundant-myriad-profuse_ ).

Sherlock had seen the signs, in those eyes. _Deduced_. Could see nothing, now, even when there was something to see, so he tried to project things with his own.

“ _Please_ , John.”

John shook his head, and it wasn’t a denial, it was _grief_. Regret.

“They’ll let you out of that,” he said, meaning the straightjacket (not the many other things he could mean, of which Sherlock was coming to fear he would never be rid), “if you’ll just cooperate.”

“Wrong!”

He’d shouted it. Hadn’t meant to. John’s eyes flashed fear, then grief again. _Mourning_. He was mourning.

He was leaving, backing away.

Damage done, then.

“You did this,” he said, sobbing, but the door had already closed. Pointless words. John didn’t hear them, wouldn’t, but they’d be recorded and used against him. More proof, this time from his own mouth. Couldn’t stop them. “You did this. Please, John, stop this, undo it.”

 

* * *

 

Transport.

It was to laugh, he thought, but those were tears. Transport to _where_. Useless, if one could never go anywhere.

Never go anywhere again, dark curls silhouetted forever against the white walls until they, too, went white, fell out.

 

* * *

 

The sixteenth time John came to visit, Sherlock couldn’t speak. The tears had welled to his eyes days before and he hadn’t been able to stop them.

They’d let his arms out, after a while, so he could dry his face.

Pity.

He’d tried to break his own fingers with his teeth so they’d been taken from him again, the doctor’s face stern enough that it was possibly well-meaning.

He’d long since spent what currency his tear ducts held, eyes red and burning, voice stripped from his throat in rasping sobs.

A pity ( _that word again_ ) that John had to see him like this.

Eyes on the wall, then, avoid the pain that shone from that face.

He’d loved that face, once, been loved by it. Still did, still was, and it made it worse.

“Sherlock, please,” John said. His turn. “This is for your own good. If you’ll just listen to the doctors, maybe—“

Sherlock was tired of listening. Couldn’t speak, nothing worth hearing.

Turn it off. Turn it off.

He didn’t hear John leave.

 

* * *

 

Twenty-first time.

“John, please don’t leave. You can’t leave me here any longer, I can’t stand it.”

 

* * *

Twenty-second time.

“Happy birthday, Sherlock.”

 

* * *

 

Sixty-eighth time.

John’s face too bright in the colourless room. Something barely-contained, bursting forth.

“Sherlock, I didn’t want to tell you this before, not until I knew for certain, but—there’s been a break. The whole team, you know, they’ve been going over the evidence from your trial, and we found a new film analyst who thinks— Sherlock, are you even listening to me?”

Yes. Yes, I’m listening.

He can’t remember how to make his lips form the words. They still ask him things, of course they do. No one had listened when he answered, though, even at the beginning. He stopped bothering long ago.

The words run round his head, keep him company, won’t leave him alone. Strange to find, suddenly, that they’re trapped there.

Sherlock wonders if this will make them angry.

“John, _please_.”

There.

Those two, at least. Those words. They could be free, flit in and out of his head at will. He hopes it will be enough.

“We’ll see, Sherlock. We’re working on it. Just take care of yourself, all right? Try to cooperate, it’ll go easier for you.”

Oh, John. John had never realised how funny he was, from the look on his face still had no idea.

They’d laughed together, he remembered that.

No matter.

 

* * *

 

 _Mycroft stood at the observation window, leaning on his umbrella, trying not to let his face reveal his concern. He worried about Sherlock, of course he did. Told him so, constantly._

 _His brother never aged, not properly; or, at least, he always looked like a child to Mycroft’s eyes. Then again, that might just be because he was his big brother, in which case it was inconclusive data._

 _The dark curls, spilling all unruly over the canvas on his shoulders, leaning back against the soft surface of the wall. He looked almost happy, bouncing his bare foot like he did when he was a child._

 _His lips were moving._

 _“Who’s John?” he asked the doctor._

 _She shook her head. “We don’t know,” she said slowly. “He started talking about him a year or so ago. Seems to blame him for being here. Is he someone in his life outside?”_

 _Mycroft gave her a long look down his nose. “My brother hasn’t had a life outside this place in fifteen years,” he said._

 _“No, no, of course.” The doctor shook her head. “But sometimes, he seems so sure. . . . “_

 _  
_

* * *

 

Eighty-first time.

“Sherlock, it’s finally time. Are you ready?”

John’s face glowed, it burned, too bright. Time in the sand, under the sun, and he’s been inside too long.

Sherlock closed his eyes. Turned away.

“I know, it’s a lot, after. Well. Look, Sherlock, I’ll never be able to— I’m so sorry. I’ll understand if you never want to speak to me again, or, well. See me. I’ll go away, if you want.”

 _You won’t go. Or you will, but you’ll come back. You always come back._

“But, Sherlock, I was hoping you might come home again. To Baker Street. You remember. I’ve kept it, all your things. Your brother paid— don’t scowl like that, he’s been very generous.”

It was meant to be a smile. One more thing he’d lost, then.

Time to go home.

He meant to say thank you. His tongue didn’t know those words anymore.

Yes, John.

“ _Please."_

**Author's Note:**

> I entirely misunderstood something happening on sherlockbbc_fic, and somehow ended up with [](http://blackalchemist.livejournal.com/profile)[ **blackalchemist**](http://blackalchemist.livejournal.com/)   's [six-word Hemingway-style fic](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/5564.html?thread=19551420#t19551420) saved as a prompt. And then I "filled" it, which I suppose makes this an inspired-by fic.


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